Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work from miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every colour, gender, age and nationality, they have at least three things in common: they love miniatures, enjoy a supportive community and they have all taken the Challenge.
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Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Hello, my friends. Here is my entry for this week. Again, not too many figures, but I´m unable to paint faster!

As I said in a previous entry, I wanted to paint some Fantasy figures in 28mm. I have some of the excellent models from Scibor Miniatures, small resin gems I would like to use in skirmish games and this is the third one I have painted (and the one I can put in this Challenge):

He is The Prophet, a mysterious Goblin who has come from the mountains to preach a message of hope (and rebellion) to the subdued Goblins, an ancient - and not to brilliant - folk enslaved for centuries by the mighty Moscal Empire.

I´m not too pleased with the green I have used in his skin, and I think that in a near future I´m going to paint another Prophet, but I like a lot the figure. This is a resin miniature full of character and quality and a full revolutionary!

Of course, there is another Pulp Figures miniature; a new armed sailor ready to defend his mates. I´m enjoying a lot the painting of these figures, and I´m awaiting some more of them!

Two more Brigadistas from Empress Miniatures. I´m finishing their bag, at last!!!!!

And the last one. Another English adventurer. This time, this is the Earl of Essex from Warlord Games. I have painted this figure to cooperate with the Thirty Years War project there is now active in my local club. They need some Generals and cavalry, so here is this English mercenary General, Edmund Campbell, looking for a new contract.

The figure is very nice, with a lot of detail, but half of his face was in a not very good shape, so I have taken the opportunity to paint him an eye patch to give him a more piratical look.

Cheers!

From Curt:Lovely work Juan. I have a few Scibor figures in blister and seeing your Prophet makes me want to tear mine out of their packages and get going on them. I really like his red eyes and the dried (or fresh) blood on his mallet. His schnauzer (nose) is pretty impressive as well! The Brigadistas are also excellent. I like how you've used different webbing colour to give them some more visual interest.Finally, the addition of the eyepatch to mask sculpting flaws on Essex is a stroke of genius. And the yellow sash provides a gorgeous punch of colour to the figure.This 30 points will give Juan enough to meet his 250 point duel with Phil, but I'm a bit torn here. Part of me thinks it should be whoever reaches the point target first, but the scheduled submission day makes this difficult, as someone may have enough points mid-week to win their duel, but are restrained by waiting for their submission day. I'm wondering if, in the spirit of fairness, we should wait until the end of the 'paint-week' (Sunday) to adjudicate the duels. If we did this then Phil would have his submission day (tomorrow) to see if he can come up with enough points to tie with Juan. I kind of like this approach as it provides a bit more of a level playing field but it will play to having more 'ties' as a possible result. What are the thoughts of the group?

Here's the result of my painting efforts over the past few weeks. The Waffen-SS PaK 40 with three-man crew was painted up using late-war camouflage colours. The figures from Warlord Games' Bolt Action series were nicely sculpted. I'll probably use these, along with a few others you can see lurking in the background, for a game I'm working towards set during Operation Market Garden.

I used Vallejo colours for the uniforms, and combined them with Wargames Foundry's basic three-part flesh tone set of paints. In recent years I've struggled to find just the right three-colour combination for painting my figures, and after some experimentation I've settled on Foundry's set as the one that gives a subtle variation in tones that are relatively quick to produce and still stand out on the tabletop.

The little Hetzer caused me more than a few headaches. I tried painting it three times, initially using an airbrush, but I just couldn't seem to get it right. I started with Vallejo Aircolor's Dunkelgelb. The airbrush produced a wonderfully smooth and even colour. But when I tried masking and applying camouflage, that's when things started to go downhill. I stripped off the paint a couple of times using Simple Green. I finally settled on a basic airbrushed coat of Dunkelgelb, followed by hand painted camouflage patches of red-brown and green. Then I added in the contrasting triangular touches of colour to produce the ambush camouflage pattern.

I finally applied a wash of AK Interactive's filter for Nato tanks (AK-076), followed by shadows in the recesses with AK Interactive wash for Nato tanks (AK-075). I painted the tracks with Vallejo's German Grey, and then textured and weathered them with umber and rust coloured MIG pigments.

From Curt:First, welcome to the Challenge Kevin! It's great to have you back with us this year.This is a great debut Kevin and a bit of a change of pace from your WWI project. All troubles aside, the Hetzer's dot pattern ambush camo came out brilliantly and the PAK team is a great piece as well . What rules are you going to be using for this lot? Again, it's great to see you on the roster!

I thought I was slowing down but despite being back at work and having to work Saturday (I never work Saturdays), I've still managed to complete 2 more Union regiments and this walker.

This is 28mm Grizzly Walker from Clockwork Goblin and stands a mighty 96mm high (plus fence). I've being eyeing it up for about a year but they have a sale on and I succumbed. It is painted in Vallejo Cam. Olive Green and dry brushed in a variety of greens and browns. The decals are cut out of an old copy of Wargames Illustrated.

The model is very well cast and a doddle to assemble - there are instructions on the web site. It has ripped up a section of scratch built fence, made from lollipop sticks, that was simply in the way. The graffiti relates to the worlds greatest football team (the football that you play with your feet using a ball shaped thing as opposed to any of the other 5 different types). The reference figure was pre-painted and from my VBCW collection. He was selected as his scarf is the correct team colours.

The headlights are sky blue and mithril silver mix and they work quite well.

I was going to base it up but I love it and want to play with it plus any base is going to be too big to be practical on the table . Will have to buy more. That gives me a new period to collect as I think it's a bit epic for VBCW, but you never know. I've no idea how many points this is worth.

Next are the 114th Pennsylvania, my Union Zouaves Regiment. My painting has really improved and I think this unit and the following 141th Pennsylvania are some of my best painting ever. I've now finished the Union division infantry but still have cannon and da boss to paint.

I've even been tarting up the bases thanks to you lot. No more simple flocking for me.

From Curt:

Great entry Martin! That walker is very cool. I have some of the stuff for the 'Dust' game and this looks to be a good fit - check it out.

Those two regiments look excellent, especially the fancy-pants zouaves. I must say I'm amazed at the change in your painting since you started this bit of madness a little over a month ago. Everything from the shading to the detail on the groundwork has 'amped up'. I really love seeing this as it further validates the benefits of the Challenge in my eyes.

Not really a points bomb the scale of some of you guys are capable of but for me it comes pretty close. This week I was lucky to have had a block of spare time and so I got some figures done.First is a 28mm PaK 36 for my early WWII Germans.

As most of my stuff lately it's Warlord Games again but I wasn't really happy with these older sculpts.
You can clearly see they're from Paul Hicks but sadly they don't come
even close to his newer works. Compared to the new plastic 'Blitzkrieg
Germans' they're pretty small and the faces are somehow misshapen.

Originally the PaK 36 had a crew of six but for some reason Warlord
Games and most other miniatures companies and/ or rules writers seem not
to care about such trivia. May have to do some more figures later on...

I was a bit confused about the troop-function colour for German
Panzerjäger units so I made some research that might be of interest to
some of you. Probably most will already know anyway...

The German Wikipedia (Haven't checked the English Version) lists
'rose' as Waffenfarbe (troop-function colour) for Panzerjäger, just like
for tank crews. While looking for pictorial evidence on the web I came
across some photos showing clearly white markings as well as rose or
green ones. So I had to dig a little deeper. I found out that
Panzerjäger units organic to the OOB of an Infanterie Regiment as 14.
Kompanie (14th company) wore white like their parent regiment (same is
true for organic 'Artillery' being the 13. Kompanie of the Regiment).Along these lines, Panzerjäger belonging to a Panzer-Grenadier Regiment had the Wiesengrün (grass-green) of the Panzer-Grenadiere as their Waffenfarbe.

Panzerjäger units belonging to the divisional support however used rose as Waffenfarbe accompanied by an embroidered (or metal pin) 'P' for Panzerjäger to distinguish them from tank crews.I hope this was of some use for at least a few of you.

And here we come to the second part of this weeks submission: a 10 man section of 'British Expeditionary Force' (BEF) infantry and their commanding Lieutenant with two aides. So 13 men in total.

These figures are from Warlord Games again and were a real joy to paint. Painting was speeded up by using the same brown (VMA Medium Brown) I used for the bases as base colour for the figures.

Looking at pictorial evidence suggests I went a tad too light on the uniforms while the webbing turned out too dark

But all in all I'm pretty pleased with the over all appearence.

I decided not to do any unit markings as most sources suggest the British made no use of it till later in the war. I'm not totally sure on the Lieutenants red cap band as it might be a bit too flashy for actual combat duty. But it breaks up the otherwise quite monotone khaki a bit so I decided to go for it.

The heads come separate for these guys but unlike Warlords other 'Separate Heads System' stuff don't feature those strange over exaggerated facial expressions.

For these guys I had to hand paint the Sergeants and Corporals rank insignia as I forgot to place an order in time for these extremely handy decal sheets.

From Curt:That is a mighty fine 'doorknocker' there Nick! I have a soft-spot for the early-war period as the uniforms were typically more 'classic' in their cut and colours and not so dominated by the bewildering assortment of camo that you see in the later period. Also, as weird as it sounds, tanks were often more scary in the early war as they were still largely uncommon and infantry were limited in the anti-tank weapons available to combat them. Later in the war every tank, no matter how huge, was at risk of being easily knocked out as the quality and effectiveness of anti-tank weapons (and the doctrine to their use) closed the gap on their dominance on the battlefield. But I blather.These figures are up to your usual brilliant standards Nick. I am constantly impressed by the detail you can pull out of the figures you paint. Your brush control and blending is off the hook. I actually like the lighter BEF uniforms as it makes them 'pop' and I wouldn't sweat the webbing as their are countless opinions on their 'proper' hue and colour.This entry will see you topple your initial points target of 400 - Congratulations! Drop me a note to let me know what final points target you'd like to aim for as we near the final half of the Challenge.

Time for a surprise!!No! This time it's not my usual Hungarians ;)This is a little diversion, normally I planned to paint something completely different, but last Wednesday when I searched what I needed, I fell on an old bag containing some Mycenaean packs, they layed there since.... ( I don't remember in fact, perhaps last century;).So they must get up and take the Field (of Glory)!The figures are from Essex Miniatures and Chariot Miniatures 15mm ranges based like all my biblical armies.So here they are:one commander and 3 units of charioteers in Dendra armour "or how to fight disguised like a tin can?"

and then 3 units of light infantry, Be careful some troops need parental advisory!

6 more units and one more rubbish army will be finished.Below : how they were last wednesday and my painting desk after I left it this afternoon;)

What will be the next ???....From Curt:Yes Gilles, these are definitely NOT Hungarians. :)Great work Gilles (I loved the tin can comment)! The Challenge is all about getting old projects off the table (more so if they are from the previous century!). I really like your arid basework on these fellows (Right now I want a plane ticket to wherever they are). Your paint station looks far too orderly and coordinated to be real - it must be one of those ersatz, stand-in, stunt-stations we all keep hearing about...